


Droid in Distress

by sqbr



Category: Original Work
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen, M/M, Meme, Robots, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2140932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sqbr/pseuds/sqbr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of the story that starts like this: Your main character is a compassionate 25 year-old man. The story begins in a police station. Someone is haunted by a traumatic experience at sea. It's a story about rags to riches. Your character sets out on a rescue mission.</p>
<p>Written for a writing meme. I've tried to make it work ok as a stand alone story that just starts in media res.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Droid in Distress

It was getting easier to shoot people. It probably helped that they kept shooting at him. 

The last guard fell off the high boardwalk with a heavy thump and Kai tried not to look at at the splattered remains on the deck far below. Kai rested his head against the bulkhead he and Daniel were using as cover. "Any more coming?" 

"I don't think so," said Daniel. "But it's hard to hear much above the engine."

Kai nodded. That was...two on this level? And there'd been three guarding Daniel's cell. Kai looked down at the gun but had no idea how to interpret the various lights and guages. Someone needed to talk to BlitzCorp about useability design. And PR. 

He held the gun towards Daniel. "Can you tell how many bullets are left in this thing?"

Daniel took the gun gingerly. He looked miserable, probably all that programming about not allowing harm to come to humans. He ran his fingers over the surface of the gun and then closed his eyes and frowned.

"Seven thousand, four hundred and twenty....five. No, six. But some of those might be stuck together."

Kai laughed. "Ok. I'll bear that in mind." At least ammunition wasn't going to be a problem. All they had to worry about was the remaining guards, the robot drones, and the CEO who'd do anything to hush this situation up. Easy. 

Daniel handed him back the gun. "I know it's programmed to kill, but I wish..."

"I know," said Kai. "I'm sorry. Trust me, I wouldn't kill anyone if I didn't have to. I don't even squash spiders."

Daniel nodded sadly. "You are a very kind man. I'm sorry you've been put in this position."

"I don't know, fighting evil rescuing a handsome man in distress, could be worse." Wait, did he just say that out loud? Now was not the time for flirting, even if Daniel was one hell of a sexy robot. 

Daniel made a face. "Kai... you know I'm not really a man."

Kai felt flash of anger at the BlitzCorp scientists who'd somehow watched Daniel develop over twenty years and still hadn't thought of him as a person, let alone worth raising with love and respect. But he said was "Oh, so you're a woman then?"

"No," said Daniel, with the hint of a laugh.

"Then you're, like...genderqueer or something? That's cool."

"Kai..." began Daniel. Then he grabbed Kai by the collar and pulled him towards him. 

"Uh..." said Kai. And then the space where his head had recently been exploded in a shower of sparks. Daniel pulled them both further down so that they were wedged against the ground between two metal bulkheads. Kai set the gun to auto mode and reached up his arm to aim a few shots in the direction the bullets had come from. He felt the gun realign itself in his hand before actually making the shot and then heard the happy sound of a drone exploding.

Kai felt Daniel tugging on his arm and hunkered back down. Daniel pulled Kai's hand under him, behind his head, so that his fingers brushed against the edges of the control panel buried in Daniel's hair. "Please," he said. "He's coming."

"Are you sure?" said Kai. Daniel nodded. Kai opened the panel, blind, and read the combination off the paper he'd stuffed in his pocket while he and Daniel were escaping the cell. Typing it in would be much easier if they weren't wedged so tightly together. Kai could feel Daniel's body humming slightly beneath him. He was warm and surprisingly soft. Anyway. That was the edge of the number pad, so if he moved one button down it would be a four...

More bullets. The boardwalk shook with the sound of footsteps loud enough that even Kai with his poor hearing could hear them over the ship's engine. "Attention, Android DNL7." There was no mistaking the voice of BlitzCorp CEO Michael Putman. Kai quickly pressed the last few keys. 

"Shutdown initiated," said Daniel, and then closed his mouth and stopped pretending to breath.

"Initiate self destruct sequence. Remote password six kay five ell..." Putman read off the numbers and letters quickly, but there were a lot of them. Kai watched Daniel's face, now deathly still. Even if he did shut down properly, would Kai be able to turn him on again? "...eight five." Putman reached the end of his list and paused. "Initiate self destruct sequence!" he shouted, voice hoarse. But Daniel couldn't hear him. His eyes were closed and his body had stopped humming. Hopefully that was good sign: self destruct implied more of an explosion, right? 

Kai reached up and took a shot in the direction of Putman's voice. The gun clicked and beeped and voice disturbingly like Daniel's said "WARNING: illegal target." Of course. The drones go beserk and kill all the scientists, the gun insists on killing all the guards, but he couldn't kill the one person on this boat who actually deserved to die. Kai changed the gun to the "manual" setting, fat lot of good that was going to do him. 

Kai pulled himself up above the bulkhead to scope out the situation and barely avoided getting his head blown off. The BlitzCorp CEO wasn't looking so good: his natty suit was covered in blood and bullet holes, and his expression looked angry and desparate. But he had a really big gun and it was pointed right at Kai. 

Kai tried shooting at Putman and got the "illegal target" error again. Shit. Putman shot at him again and only missed because he had a regular manual gun and the marksmanship of a man with a desk job. 

Kai ducked down and shot the metal ceiling above Putman, creating some gratifying sparks but not much else. Still, it got Putman to stop walking. Kai's eyes fell to Daniel, still lying motionless, actually looking like a robot now. Or a corpse. 

"Give me the android," shouted Putman. 

As a reply, Kai shot at the ceiling some more. Then for some variety, he shot at the floor. Some of the metal rods making up the mesh floor snapped. Putman shot back, once, twice, and then stopped. To reload? Kai took a deep breath, stood up quickly, and made as many shots as he could at the floor. The mesh pinged and snapped and went a dull red. Kai ducked back down. 

"You want him? Come and get him," shouted Kai. 

Was Putman distracted enough to fall for it? Another bullet rang against the metal wall. And then Kai heard Putman take a step towards him. And then another.

And then...there was a loud creak, a cry, and a heavy thud.

* * *

_Initiating startup sequence..._  
WARNING: This device was shut down improperly. Restart required.  
WARNING: Restart requires power connection. Startup terminated.   
WARNING: This device was shut down improperly. Restart required.  


* * *

Daniel woke up to darkness and the smell of dust. His power was low and he was...he'd been restarted? He rolled over and felt something pull on the back of his neck: a usb jack. Had someone been trying to hack into him? He didn't have anything about it in his data logs. But he'd been offline for...days. Maybe a week, if his internal clock was still right. And his data logs didn't cover any of it.

Where was he? On a couch. In someone's house, from the look of things. Not a laboratory, that was for sure. Nor a prison cell. Or a junkyard. Could this be _Kai's_ house? Not for the first time Daniel wished he had a better sense of smell, there were robots in his lab who would have been able to analyse the dna in the air and tell you exactly who lived here, but all Daniel could tell was that whoever it was was hadn't vacuumed recently.

Of course all those robots were dead now. But Daniel wasn't dead. That was good. And if this was Kai's house then _he_ wasn't dead either. That was good too. Daniel liked Kai a lot. Daniel was designed to like everyone, but Kai was definitely his favourite human. He actually treated Daniel like a person. It was nice.

This house was nice too. Not fancy, but aethetically pleasing and...friendly. Daniel switched on the light and admired the way the colours of the furniture harmonised with the paint on the walls. It looked like it was designed for someone Kai's height, but Daniel wanted to be sure. He looked around for something identifying...a photo! Yes, that was Kai. And a taller woman with similar features...his mother? How interesting it would be to have a mother. Daniel wondered if he'd have a chance to meet her. 

On the ship all he'd had time to focus on was survival, and protecting Kai. His mind kept going over the memories, shaken by seeing so many humans die. But not as shaken as he might have expected. Maybe the scientists had been right to want to shut him down: he should have wanted to save _all_ the humans, and not been willing to stay by Kai as he shot their way to safety. But he couldn't regret it. Even now, haunted as he was by those visions of death, his primary thought was: am I safe? Is Kai safe? Or was BlitzCorp going to come after them again? Should he leave now to lead them away from Kai? He didn't want to do that. What he wanted was...

"Daniel!"

Daniel turned to face Kai. He was wearing a shirt and track pants and looked ruffled. Of course, it was night! Most people slept at night. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?" said Daniel. "I'll turn the light back off."

Kai walked up to him and gave him a hug. "Don't you dare. I thought I'd screwed things up and you were dead!"

Daniel gently put his hands on Kai's shoulders. He hadn't hugged anyone since leaving the smaller body he'd had as a child. It was different from this angle. He liked it. "I'm glad to see you too. What happened?"

"Putman had set the ship to blow. I got us into a life raft, but I couldn't wake you up, you kept saying you needed power. And all I could find was your usb port."

"You recharged my restart with _usb_?" asked Daniel, laughing. "No wonder I've been out for a week. I'll have to show you how to power me properly."

Kai hugged him tighter. "Or you could never go offline again."

"That's also acceptable," said Daniel. He felt _happy_. He hadn't felt happy in _years_ , not since he'd stopped being under development and started being passed from section to section at BlitzCorp as his creators tried to find a profitable use for a robot who had all the capabilities of an average human...and not much else. He thought of Kai, so much smaller than him and weaker than your average human, putting his own life in danger to drag Daniel's lifeless body to safety. He thought of Kai worrying over Daniel, trying to find some way to bring him back to life. Daniel thought of Kai and he was beyond happy. "Thank you...for everything. For saving me, and bringing me here. I can never truly repay you. Anyone else who found that bag would have kept the money, or ignored the note for help. But you..." How did humans express this kind of feeling? Daniel wrapped his arms around Kai and wanted only to get closer. 

"I'm just glad you're alive," said Kai. "That's worth more than any money. And I'm sure I can stretch my pension to cover us both. It's not like you eat. That is...if you want to stay here. Obviously, now you're free, you can go wherever you like..." 

"Oh, I can pay you with _money_ ," said Daniel. "It's just the metaphysical debts which are beyond me. I embezzled a hundred million dollars from the weapons division when I realised they were going to shut me down. I lost some of it, like the bag you handed in at the police station, but I'm sure there's at least a few million dollars left. I spread it out over several caches across the city."

"Oh," said Kai.

Daniel remembered how humans expressed intense affection. He leaned down and gave Kai a kiss on the forehead. That was nice. He would definitely have to do that again. What else was there? Gifts! "Since you're awake, do you want to go find some?"

Kai looked and gave Daniel a wicked grin. "Sure," he said. "Sounds like fun."


End file.
